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Vimeo was founded in November 2004 by Jake Lodwick and Zach Klein.[6] The name Vimeo was created by Lodwick, as a play on the words video and me.[citation needed] Vimeo is also an anagram of the word movie.[7]IAC purchased Vimeo in August 2006, as part of its acquisition of Connected Ventures.[8] In January 2009, Dae Mellencamp joined IAC as general manager of Vimeo.[9] She served as CEO until March 19, 2012, when Kerry Trainor joined Vimeo as CEO.[10] In 2017, IAC promoted then general manager Anjali Sud as the CEO.[11]

As of December 2013[update], Vimeo attracts more than 100 million unique visitors per month and more than 22 million registered users.[12] Fifteen percent of Vimeo’s traffic comes from mobile devices.[13] As of February 2013, Vimeo accounted for 0.11% of all Internet bandwidth, following far behind video sharing sites YouTube and Facebook.[14] The community of Vimeo includes indie filmmakers and their fans.[15] The Vimeo community has adopted the name "Vimeans", meaning a member of the Vimeo community, usually one who is active and engaged with fellow users on a regular basis.[16] The White House posts high-definition versions of its broadcasts to Vimeo.[17] Vimeo has helped to offload traffic from Improv Everywhere's servers after new pranks are announced, and continues to host most of their videos. Vimeo was also the original location of Noah Kalina's "everyday" video,[18] a popular viral video.

On July 21, 2008, Vimeo announced that it would no longer allow gaming videos. Vimeo cited a few reasons, including that the unusually long duration of gaming videos was holding back transcoder wait times; existing gaming videos were deleted on September 1, 2008. The ban was lifted in October 2014.[19] Until then, all new uploads were subject to the rule, but machinima videos with a story of their own were still permitted.[20]

In December 2014, Vimeo introduced 4K support, though it would only allow downloading due to the low market penetration of 4K displays at the time.[21] Streaming of 4K content launched the following year, along with adaptive bitrate streaming support.[22] In March 2017, Vimeo introduced 360-degree video support, including support for virtual reality platforms and smartphones, stereoscopic video, and an online video series providing guidance on filming and producing 360-degree video.[23]

On May 2, 2016, Vimeo announced the acquisition of VHX, a platform for premium over-the-top subscription video channels.[24]

On September 26, 2017, Vimeo announced that it would introduce a live streaming platform, and that it had acquired the existing service Livestream to bolster its associated staff and technology.[25]

On October 9, 2007, Vimeo announced support for high definition playback in 1280×720 (720p), becoming the first video sharing site to support consumer HD.[5] Uploaded HD videos were automatically converted into 720/30p VP6Flash video. Since August 2010, all videos are encoded into H.264 for HTML5 support. All videos uploaded before were re-encoded. Non-Plus users can upload up to 500 MB of videos per week, and up to one HD video per week (additional HD videos uploaded within the same week are encoded to SD).

Non-HD videos re-encode at a maximum of 30 frame/s but suffer in general video image quality, which is inline with the low bitrate for videos in the 640×360 size. Usually the video content is re-encoded to bitrate below 0.5 Mbit/s. This is not enough to reproduce the fine details that can be captured from, e.g., a consumer video camera or a smartphone.

Vimeo began its service with only free accounts, limited to 20 MB of disk space weekly.[26] This limit was raised to 30 MB in 2006,[27] then to 250 MB in January 2007[28] and to the current level of 500 MB in October 2007.[29] In January 2018, a total cap of 5GB was placed on how much video a basic user was able to upload.

In October 2008, Vimeo Plus launched for $60 annual fee and a 2 GB weekly allowance,[30] which was raised to the current level of 5 GB on January 4, 2011.[31] The latter allowance allows roughly 2.5 hours of 720p video. As of July 22, 2010, the site offers unlimited HD embeds.[32]

On August 1, 2011, Vimeo introduced the PRO account type for business and commercial use, which allows 50GB of storage, 250k plays, advanced analytics, third-party video player support and more.

Vimeo Plus is the only paid plan available on a month-to-month basis. Other paid plans require an annual payment.

Vimeo Basic and Vimeo Plus prohibit commercial use, unless the account holder is a "small-scale independent production company, non-profit, or artist," and the account is used to present original creative works.[33]

Starting May 4, 2012, the site was blocked in India by some ISPs under orders from the Department of Telecommunications, without any stated reasons.[37][38] Shortly, thereafter, the ban was lifted. It was later revealed that piracy and copyright infringement of the films 3 and Dhammu were the cause of a week ban of the site in India, LH Harish Ram of Copyright Labs, Chennai, representing the makers of the two films sent notices to ISPs across the country asking them to block offending URLs. When the ISPs blocked popular sites like Vimeo, Ram wrote on his Twitter account that he had not asked for the entire domains to be blocked but only specific URLs where infringement was taking place.[citation needed]
Contrary to what Ram claimed on Twitter, his letter about Dhammu clearly asks for 272 URLs to be blocked and these are complete URLs, not specific webpages. A copy of Ram's letter is available online. On June 15 that year, the Madras high court took note of the controversy and clarified that only those URLs which are infringing copyright can be blocked, not entire websites, and the ban was lifted.[citation needed]
As of November 2014, Vimeo was accessible in India.
Vimeo had been blocked in India in December 2014, due to fears that the website was spreading ISIS propaganda through some of its user-made videos.[39] However, on December 31, the site was unblocked in India.[40]

In May 2014, Tifatul Sembiring, Indonesia's Communications Minister from his personal Twitter account said that video sharing site Vimeo would be banned. Citing Indonesia’s controversial anti-pornography law, passed in 2008, the minister said the site included displays of "nudity or nudity-like features".[41] The ban came at a moment when films made in Indonesia had begun to attract attention on the world stage, with Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing joining the ranks of the most acclaimed documentaries of all time.[42]